Dr. Gazan Receives NASA Astrobiology Institute Grant

Rich Gazan has received a grant of $29,849 from the NASA Astrobiology Institute Director’s Discretionary Fund, to investigate the extent to which publications by astrobiology researchers demonstrate actual and potential interdisciplinarity. The project, entitled Interdisciplinary Research Metrics in Astrobiology (IRMA), will provide summer research funding for two graduate students in 2013 (Co-Investigators Lisa Miller and Mike Gowanlock), to integrate data mining and information clustering techniques with a social science component to assess opportunities for, and barriers to, interdisciplinary research across astrobiology’s diverse constituent fields.

The NASA Astrobiology Institute Director’s Discretionary Fund makes one-year awards for research that advances the science of astrobiology, demonstrates impact to NASA’s space flight programs or its broader science activities, and/or contributes to NASA’s role as a federal R&D agency. More information about the NASA Astrobiology Institute can be found here: https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/.